


Nothing New

by pyrrhical (anoyo)



Series: Author's Favorites [13]
Category: Doctrine of Labyrinths - Sarah Monette
Genre: Collection: Rair Pare Fest 2017, Community: trope_bingo, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 08:36:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11847906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/pyrrhical
Summary: It's always dangerous, being the one who loves the most.





	Nothing New

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zaatar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaatar/gifts).



> Written for zaatar for Rare Pair Fest 2017: I hope you enjoy this. I tried to use as many of your requests as I could, and this is what came out. In my head, it's set post-Corambis, but it can really be whenever you want. I love that you wanted the complexity and complication of their relationship: I could never really see these two ever being "easy." You could consider this H/C, in a weird way, if you want.

Mildmay had never been someone to seek out deep and meaningful relationships. Never been one to purposefully invest himself. There were any number of reasons, and they were all good reasons. He was a criminal, he’d always done best on his own, relationships were liabilities. But mostly, it was because when he let himself care, it was always too much.

Nothing did more damage than being the one who cared the most.

In his experience, Mildmay had found that there was no such thing as “reciprocal love.” Someone always cared more, and that’s just how it was. Friendship or romantic love, it didn’t matter. Someone _always_ cared more. And when he let himself, Mildmay was always that someone. 

It wasn’t that he wanted to be, it was just that he did. When he let himself make that connection, he didn’t do it half-assed. Anything worth doing, and all that nonsense. 

That was how it had always been, and Felix was no exception.

Mildmay had never cared about anyone more than he cared about Felix, and it made sense. Felix was family. Mildmay had spent solid years taking care of him, keeping him safe, dealing with his madness -- without love, he never would have stuck with it. It hadn’t been a choice. Instead, it had been a foregone conclusion.

He loved Felix, and Felix loved him. That was how the good relationships worked, and somehow, his relationship with Felix had become one of the good ones. They’d worked past their shit. At least, most of it. The only problem came when Mildmay tried to define that love.

Most of the time, Felix loved him like a brother. Like he was expected to do. He’d even mastered a bit of what Mildmay had taken to calling “big brother urges.” 

He tried to keep Mildmay out of trouble, critiqued the women Mildmay fucked, and made a solid effort to be responsible enough for both of them. Mildmay knew he’d always shoulder the real responsibility, but it meant something that Felix tried. Mildmay even let Felix pretend he was succeeding. 

Felix made the money, but Mildmay kept them eating. That’s just how it was.

A softness had crept into their relationship, of a sort that Mildmay had really only glimpsed with Cardenio, and only in brief flashes. An assumption of forgiveness, a small urge to do things for the sole purpose of making one another happy. It wasn’t that they’d lost their sharp edges -- years and lives would never really overtake how they’d been built -- but that they kept those edges padded until either they needed them, or the pads wore thin.

Their relationship had steadied, and so had their love. Most of the time. 

Other times, that love was something else. Sometimes, Felix didn’t love him like a brother, but like a lover. 

The first time, it had taken him by surprise, Felix’s fingers running down the side of his face, gentling over scar tissue. Felix had looked him in the eye for a few moments, his desire obvious, before he had stepped back and become the everyday Felix, for all that there _was_ an everyday Felix.

It might have given Mildmay pause, but it didn’t. Felix was Felix, and Mildmay would never pretend to understand everything that went through his mind. In the end, it didn’t matter: Mildmay would love him regardless. 

There had been second, third, tenth times, and Mildmay hadn’t even pretended to startle when Felix had pressed their mouths together, the kiss soft, but not a question.

Weeks would pass without any indication, and then Felix would kiss him like he’d never stopped. 

Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe this was what romantic love had turned into, in Felix’s mind, or maybe familial love had never distinguished itself.

Either way, it didn’t really matter. It didn’t matter that Mildmay had never been with a man, or that that man was his brother. Mildmay loved Felix as a person, and his love had never made exclusions. He loved wholly, or not at all.

It didn’t matter that Mildmay still fucked women, or that Felix still seduced anyone that caught his attention. It didn’t matter that some days they were brothers, and others they were lovers.

That some days Mildmay kissed his brother like he never had any woman -- kissed full of trust, comfort, and immeasurable love. Kissed not just as a precursor to sex, but as a sort of promise, maybe proclamation, that this love was the strongest, no matter the shape it took.

It didn’t matter that only Felix could decide which days were which, and that Mildmay never had a choice.

Mildmay loved Felix more that he had loved anyone before, and likely more than he would ever love anyone still to come. That he loved Felix more than Felix loved him was fine.

It was dangerous to be the one who loved the most, but Mildmay was used to danger. Felix had always put him in the greatest danger; why would his love be any different?

“Mildmay?”

Mildmay looked up, refocusing his eyes from the middle distance where they had drifted. “Hm?” he asked, his voice gravelly. 

Smiling, Felix slipped into the bed to Mildmay’s left, then rolled to his side and propped his head on an arm, never dropping eye contact. “Might I ask where you went?”

Mildmay stretched his arms above where he was laying on his back, the muscles pulling until his hands were flat against the headboard. He dropped his elbows to the pillows and shrugged. “Nowhere new,” he answered. 

Felix reached out a hand to chase the ridges of Mildmay’s abdomen, bare above the sheet lazily pulled to his waist. “May I join you there?” he asked, his fingers tickling and petting in turns. 

Letting his arms fall back to his sides, Mildmay gently hooked a hand around the biceps that lead to the hand on his stomach. “Not today,” he said slowly.

Felix’s eyes questioned for a moment before he flattened his hand and drew it slowly up Mildmay’s torso. “All right,” he agreed softly. He continued drawing his hand up until it was curved around the side of Mildmay’s neck and Felix’s body was curved over Mildmay, almost protectively. “Someday?”

Mildmay tugged on the biceps and Felix obligingly braced himself on a knee between Mildmay’s legs before kissing him softly, but thoroughly. Mildmay let himself sigh into the kiss before bringing his free hand up to push through Felix’s hair, adding some distance between them in the process. “Maybe,” he said, holding Felix’s eyes with his own, “but probably not.”

“Whatever you want,” Felix said, though his eyes had narrowed briefly, and the thumb of the hand on Mildmay’s neck was now stroking up and down over Mildmay’s adam’s apple. He kissed Mildmay again, a little harder than before, but still gentle. He broke the kiss to add, his words puffs of air against Mildmay’s mouth, “You know I love you, right?”

Felix’s eyes were searching, and while Mildmay almost wondered if he understood, all he said was, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> This covers my "power dynamics" square for Trope Bingo.


End file.
